Caramel Cupcakes, Now with Extra Narcotics!

Hey everyone, hope you’re eating lots of bready goodness tonight, because tomorrow is the dreaded PASSOVER! (DUM DUM DUM!) The great thing about Passover this year, however, is that it means all three Baking Sisters are finally reunited in New York City! The less great thing about Passover is that we have to go eight days without eating bread or really anything remotely delicious, except chicken and potato chips and leaf cookies which are always delicious. Anyway, thought we’d get in one last entry before we have to resign ourselves to a week of flourless cake.

Last week was my 23^rd birthday. Typically my birthday goes un-celebrated because it’s always over spring break. This year, however, spring break ceased to exist for me, and my birthday was on a normal Wednesday. Lots of people would probably like the day off on their birthday, but I found it to be a nice refreshing change to actually be around other people who aren’t my parents on my birthday. This year has had a lot of challenges for me and I decided to send it off in style with a ragin’ party. And by ragin’, I mean ragin’ amount of baked goods. With the help of my friend Lara, who was staying over for the weekend, I made some great standbys like Dorie’s lemon cream tart, the King Arthur Flour chocolate cake, and the always-appreciated chocolate covered strawberries (my concession to healthiness). But no birthday of mine would be complete without cupcakes, and I thought for many a day about which cupcake to make, to no avail. Then, Lara arrived from D.C. on Friday, and gave me my birthday present – the Georgetown Cupcake cookbook! Frequent readers of the blog will know how impressed I was with Georgetown Cupcakes, and this was the perfect gift. Our friend Anjali came for dinner that night, and, having recently visited Lara and tried a Georgetown Cupcake, immediately demanded that I make the caramel sea salt cupcakes.

Now I know why! These were AMAZING! The cakes were good but the frosting was mind-blowing, and so easy to make. You literally just dump the ingredients in a bowl and turn on your mixer. It couldn’t be easier. The only thing is the caramel sauce, which is called for in both the cake and the frosting. I don’t know where I messed up – maybe I didn’t cook the sugar for long enough – but my caramel came out very much the wrong color and texture; it was kind of thin and grayish, not that appealing. Luckily Lara was able to dash out and buy some caramel sauce, so that was fine. Everyone loved them but there were a few left over, so my friend Brianna (who, by the way, doesn’t like cakes or sweet desserts but ate three of these cupcakes and said they were the best sweet desserts she’s ever had) took them back to her dorm. While she was talking with a friend about a party she had attended the night before that was broken up by the cops, the friend took a bite of the cupcake and exclaimed, “Someone needs to call the cops about these cupcakes, because they definitely have cocaine in them!” So there you have it.